I’ve snuck into the bikeBasement to work on the Ghostal project a few more times since last update. Most of the work down there has been archeological. I’ve gotten t the point where I have MOST of the bike shop guts laid out on a series of surfaces, enough so that the items that were still missing were apparent. It was clear that there was a box of missing bikery, buried somewhere in the boxes compressed for storage. Either that, or the box went on a walkabout. So I had to dig in there and find out which it would be. For this, I needed to wait until I had some time during the day, so as not to disturb any sleeping wee Z’s above. And I had that opportunity after a meeting last week, and dug away. As it turns out, I had TWO missing boxes of bikery: one had my panniers, hydropacks and one of the missing parts for the Ghostal project; the other, the box I was thinking of, with bars, seatposts, and assorted small gifts, including the remainder of the missing Ghostal parts. Success!

Update 001: Bars. I finally had the opportunity to get the bars sorted. I needed to wait for the proper grips on this, because the original set had hollow ends and the more I thought about it, the less I wanted this. I originally WANTED the exposed ends because I like to put blinkies on drop bar bar-ends. But in this instance, the concept overrode the safety factor (ssh)… I just didn’t want black blinkie tips on this bike. I looked for chrome silver, no luck. I penciled out a homebrew version, then decided it would suck to pull them out to turn them on and so on, and here we are. So, I got Kierin type solid grips and went to work putting them on. On the first go-round with these bars, on Fix-e’s last makeover, I had a hell of a time, because I tried to do this without the lube method. Strong arming these things doesn’t really bring pleasure to your tendons. So this time, i used the methods I ultimately used on Fix-e, but right out of the gate. I was unprepared for how easy it was this time. Couple of squirts of Windex on the bars, and zipppppp , the grips went right on. My last pair were very tight and I loosened them up with a hot water soak prior. But these were just right. The white grips on chrome bars? Yes, it’s very aesthetically pleasing.

Update 002: Make it Stop! The majority of the work done since last time involve the stopping system, hence the post title. Brake, Lever, Pedals (backpedaling) and connective tissues. Were I a wicked skid-stopper, I could have thrown tyres into this category, ha. That’s Lung’s department. Anyway, I like using salmon brake pads from Kool Stop. Actually, I really like the combo salmon and black pads I use on the Villain, as they are a great compromise between sticky for wet and durability for normal road conditions. But I planned on all salmon this time because I’m running non-machined sidewalls and I wanted extra sticky. As it turns out, this ended up being another source of delay. The brake caliper I ultimately chose to use is a Tiagra from Shimano, and it employs an integrated brake shoe and connection bolt to the pad itself, vs all my other brakes which use a shoe and a pad insert. So I had to source new shoes, and pads for them. I got these, slapped it up, flipped it, and rubbed it down, and here we are: salmon pads in new shoes, ready to go.

I also finally got to put my brake lever on one of the missing items from that lost box) and spent this morning, actually, working on the brake cabling. That should be a no-brainer, but there’s something a little different this time around. It’s intended to be a fun surprise, so I’m not going to discuss it further, yet, but it involves specialized hardware. And it’s not as cool as you no-doubt imagine. But cool all the same. And for my particular needs, VERY cool.

Update 003: Propah Seatpost: I had used a temp seatpost so far, just to see how the sweet, sweet honey Brooks Swallow would look, being one of the only color items on the build (yes, it looks Sweet As) which was the old post from Fix-e. Rusty, banged-up, with old bolt-pinned seatclamp, weighing 33 pounds. I finally received my proper post just before the weekend, which is aluminum and has the nice allen bolt seat attachment. Solid! Out with the old, in with the new. JoBlue will no doubt be disappointed at the seat angle.

Update 004: Finally, I recovered the OTHER missing items from the lost box, my Shimano halfsies A530 pedals, which I threw on with a spot of grease. And for the first time, I didn’t spend valuable minutes threading them backwards and being annoyed about it.

So, we’re down to tyres, rims and drivetrain, which, if all goes well, will be the final step. Ihave everything I need, and the only thing stopping me from completion is that one of the rims got jacked up in shipping and I ave to dremel and sand the clincher a bit so as to avoid the flats!

One last note: guess who was effing lurking in my Ghostal parts bin. THATS RIGHT!

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1. Bike Build Process Log: Ghostal – Stoppers and Starters
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3. Bike Build Process Log: Ghostal by the Horns